The Shakespeare Years
by Seanchaidh
Summary: I did not intend to end up with a full five act play scattered throughout the middle of a quarter of a million word novel (A Stitch In Time). However, I did and some readers intimated that they would be interested to read it. I've been though it once more, therefore, editing and fixing little errors, and here it is. I hope you enjoy it. Sorry for the delay posting the last 4 acts.
1. Act 1

**A/N:** The "old, fat man" Leonard vaguely recalls in Act 1 is his father, but will become, at Shakespeare's hands, one of the greatest antiheroes he ever wrote: Sir John Falstaff. Similarly, Leonards tangled memories of the "merry war" between himself and Sara as they got to know each other would go on to fuel Shakespeare's imagination in the writing of Much Ado About Nothing and in the characters of Benedick and Beatrice, two of his more sensible lovers. Although as far as sensible lovers go in Shakespeare, that's not really saying much.

For anyone not familiar not familiar with British informal versions of names, Jack is the informal version of John, and Hal, or Harry, the informal versions of Henry. Obviously, Lizzie is short for Elizabeth and Will for William.

John Heminges and Henry Condell, along with, indeed, William Shakespeare, his family, and all the other players mentioned herein, were actual people; however, massive liberties have been taken with the portrayal of their lives and no insult or offence is meant to their memories or surviving relatives.

* * *

The Shakespeare Years

 **Act 1: The Christmas Foundling**

 **Scene 1: Shoreditch**

[Guillaume, lying on the cobblestones, vomits and sits up. Enter William Shakespeare, flanked by John Heminges and Henry Condell]

 **Shakespeare:** What ho, man! Speak if thou dost live! Art thou drunken tinker or a slumbering lord?

 **Guillaume:** Neither, but a poor pilgrim returned from the Holy Land. I fear the journey has

not agreed with me.

 **Shakespeare:** A pilgrim, forsooth? Lying here? Knoweth thou what day it is?

 **Guillaume:** My journey hath been long and difficult. I fear I do not even know the year!

 **Shakespeare:** Why man! 'Tis Christmas! The new year draws nigh, but not so close as all that, for 'tis still the year of Our Lord fifteen ninety six.

[Guillaume reels.]

 **Shakespeare:** What ails thee, pilgrim?

 **Guillaume:** I merely balk at the time I have lost.

 **Shakespeare:** Why, what day dost thou last remember, friend?

 **Guillaume:** Of the day itself I cannot recall; but I know 'twas the first of December, not the twenty fifth.

 **Shakespeare:** Come John, come Henry: help me raise our new found friend to his feet.

He burns with fever and I fear he has long been ill with all. Speak, pilgrim, and tell: what name hast thou, and of what town a son.

 **Guillaume:** That is all I have in this world, my friend. Naught of great worth and little of ought else.

 **Shakespeare:** And I will bear it faithfully for thee,

'til thou canst take it up again thyself.

Thy name and whither, sir, may we bear thee?

 **Guillaume:** My name is William. No lodging have I but the bare stones from which thou didst raise me.

 **Shakespeare:** William thou art? Why, brother, so am I!

To Bishopsgate, and there I'll see thee lie.

[Exeunt]

XXXX

 **Scene 2: Shakespeare's lodgings**

[Guillame asleep in Shakespeare's bed. Shakespeare standing by the fire, out of his view. Guillaume awakes.]

 **Guillaume:** Where am I?

 **Shakespeare:** Thou art here, in Bishopsgate, without the City of London; in my lodgings in

Crosby Street at the sign of the Boar's Head, and in my bed. Art thou now answered?

 **Guillaume:** London. London, England. Christmas day, fifteen ninety six.

 **Shakespeare:** So it is.

 **Guillaume:** I am William, and so are you.

 **Shakespeare:** So we are. My comrades and I brought thee hither from whence we found thee, in Shoreditch.

 **Guillaume:** Shoreditch?

 **Shakespeare:** Where we were celebrating the birth of Our Lord and Saviour. We had begun such with holy mass at midnight in the Church of Saint Leonard, and from thence continued

our revels in the nearby taverns. It was upon leaving the last of these that we came across thy good self, reclining upon the piss-laden cobbles of two noisome alehouses.

 **Guillaume:** Saint Leonard?

 **Shakespeare:** The name is familiar?

 **Guillaume:** Yet for a sinner, not a saint.

 **Shakespeare:** All men are both, in equal measure. We choose which face the world sees, and rarely does it tell the full tale of our existence.

 **Guillaume:** And what is yours?

 **Shakespeare:** How say you, friend?

 **Guillaume:** Your tale. Your name I know, but it says naught of who you are. If a name told all, we two would be twins.

 **Shakespeare:** Yet, twin-like, I could ask the same of you.

[Guillame and Shakespeare stare at each other a moment.]

 **Shakespeare:** I am a humble wordsmith, sir: poet and playwright, and player too when it serves.

 **Guillaume:** I am a man of many trades and none. Put me to work and you'll not find me wanting. I am strong, or I was, and not unused to manual labour.

 **Shakespeare:** Can you read?

 **Guillaume:** In any language you care to write.

 **Shakespeare:** Indeed? Your education is something finer, then, than you could purchase in a pilgrim's weary life.

 **Guillaume:** My life has been my education. Come: put me to the test. What would you have me read?

[Shakespeare holds out a scroll, indicating the Latin on the seal.]

 **Guillaume:** Lord, direct us.

 **Shakespeare:** Know you what this is?

[Guillaume shakes his head.]

 **Shakespeare:** 'Tis the seal of the City of London. This scroll gives my players and I leave to perform therein for this coming twelvemonth.

 **Guillaume:** I have never seen it before in my life.

 **Shakespeare:** Good enough. Can you learn a role and play it as if it were truly your own self?

 **Guillaume:** Indeed, I do so every day!

 **Shakespeare:** In truth?

 **Guillaume:** My memory fails me. If a man cannot recall his own self, what else must he do but play the part he is presented with?

 **Shakespeare:** A poor memory makes an ill player.

 **Guillaume:** It is the past alone that eludes me.

 **Shakespeare:** Mayhap we can use you then. What say you?

 **Guillaume:** I will be guided by you, sir, of course. I have little else to repay you with. What few things I have are of paltry worth, and yet I trust they are safe in your care?

 **Shakespeare:** They are, and such strange things they are indeed. I pray you will forgive the intrusion, for I am a curious man, i'faith. I seek in others the inspiration for all my creations, sinner or saint.

 **Guillaume:** [looking and spotting sack] It is all there?

 **Shakespeare:** [rising and indicating the sack on the table] See for yourself, William. I am no thief.

[Guillaume approaches the table, his hands eagerly closing on the open mouth of the sack. Once he has satisfied himself that its contents were intact, he reaches for the purse and knife that lay nearby, fastening them to his belt with practised ease. Behind him, William watches and wonders.]

 **Shakespeare:** I cannot keep calling you 'William' or 'sir'. You have no trade, and you say you have no home. What then should I call you? Have you no family name by which you are known? What was your father's name?

 **Guillaume:** I have no other name. Not that I remember. And I do not believe I would use my father's if I knew it. The word itself merely conjures up in me a feeling of disgust, and the memory of an old, fat man who lacked the courage and wits to be a good thief, but was happy to let another do his thieving for him.

 **Shakespeare:** We cannot choose our parentage, William. Tell me of him and, if you wish it, I will write him in a character that will ridicule his soul before the masses.

 **Guillaume:** I would not have his memory taint your opinion of me. And who knows when I may need to bargain such a tale for another night's board!

 **Shakespeare:** Thou art a sly one, William of no place, no trade and no name. Sly thou art and sly I'll name thee. Why 'twas one of the first names I e'er gave a character of mine that graced the London stage.

 **Guillaume:** What would you call me, sir?

 **Shakespeare:** A Christian pilgrim you did come to me, and now I'll christen you anew. Arise, William Sly, and give me your friendship's hand. You'll pay me well in tales, or I'm a fool.

 **Guillaume:** Be my guide and friend in this strange city, and I will tell thee tales to fill thy mind. Thy purse will follow. Give me your good hand, and give me your name. To whom must Sly bow?

 **Shakespeare:** Both guide and friend I'll be to keep you here

and be my muse. My name is Will Shakespeare.

XXXX

 **Scene 3: A busy London street**

[Enter William Shakespeare and William Sly, walking through the streets of Bishopsgate. Enter a ragged and muddy-haired urchin, who cuts Sly's purse then darts away.]

 **Shakespeare:** My apologies, I should have warned you to keep one hand on your purse through these streets. I forget that, as a stranger here, you have no knowledge of the city and its surrounds. Fear not: I doubt the tailor would have accepted your strange coin anyway.

I have money enough to pay him for what we need now, and I'll warrant you have stories enough to earn me more later. Come: we shall see you properly attired and fit for company.

 **Sly:** Speaking of company: I note you keep none, bar mine, these last two days. Have you no family to share the season with?

 **Shakespeare:** I do indeed have family. They bide northwest of here, in Stratford-upon-Avon. Two daughters, under the care of my wife.

 **Sly:** And yet you are here?

 **Shakespeare:** A playwright needs an audience, and the best audiences are here, in London.

 **Sly:** But even for these few days?

 **Shakespeare:** I cannot. Judge me not: you know not of my sorrow.

 **Sly:** Then tell it me. Not that I may judge, but that I may understand.

 **Shakespeare:** Two children have I, but last year had I three. My boy, my son, the twin of my youngest daughter, was taken from me this very year, not five months since. So alike they were, I cannot yet look the one in the face without seeing the other.

 **Sly:** To lose a child is a pain I do not believe I have ever suffered. Although I believe I have known another who did. The loss of an only son, still young. Just a boy. And it broke his father's heart.

 **Shakespeare:** Sons often do.

 **Sly:** In more ways than one.

XXXX

 **Scene 4: Eastcheap, Sly's new lodgings**

 **Sly:** What year is it?

[A chorus of groans.]

 **Sly:** 'Tis now the first morn of fifteen ninety seven, or we have slept too long my friends.

 **Shakespeare:** I'll wager we have not overslept here. John mayhap, but Henry would not sleep past his morning vittles.

 **Henry Condell:** Not I, Will. An' there's a wench downstairs as knows my fancy for this hour o' the clock.

 **John Heminges:** I'll warrant she knows thy fancy for more than that!

 **Condell:** Hold thy peace, thou old letcher. Thou art ten years my senior, thou has a wife younger than mine, and still thy head turns at every comely bosom as floats by!

 **Heminges:** Hark, hark! The married man! Come now, Hal, we'll not tell the dulcet Lizzie where you supped whiles she deserted you for an ailing aunt, and you'll not tell my bonny lass where my gaze doth fall of late.

 **Condell:** Say what thou canst: my Lizzie's the finest cook this side of London.

 **Heminges:** I'll not doubt it. [To Shakespeare and Sly] Shall we send thee a plate of kidneys or a cup of sack gentlemen?

 **Shakespeare:** Neither an thou woudst not kill me by kindness. Go to. I'll follow thee presently.

 **Sly:** I fear I do not need my memory to tell me I am unpractised in your revels, sir.

 **Shakespeare:** Fear not, my friend, I am as ill-favoured as yourself this fine morning. Friend John is the exception, not we. The lad, Henry, took little enough ale to close his lids. 'Twas his elders that caroused until the midnight bell tolled the new year into life, not he. We have but our just desserts for our revels. Why our Jack feels it not is beyond my ken, and yet he never does. Belike he has made a pact with Marlow's demon! An I write a devil for thy

father, I'll make him a drunk and give him Jack's name!

 **Sly:** A drunken, lecherous John to tempt an innocent Henry?

 **Shakespeare:** Aye, and more than that! Between their two names and thy tales I'll weave a world of words that, in its history, bears a comedy, and in comedy lies a tragedy; for Hal will shake off his evil mentor, and will rise to be a greater hero than ever he was an egregious thief!

 **Sly:** I fear that John's bad angel may be more believable than Hal's good ascendant. 'Tis a high bar to set for a poor man.

 **Shakespeare:** Many a prince has been born a pauper. On my humble stage, all is possible.

 **Sly:** Will you break your fast with me or will you stay?

 **Shakespeare:** Lead on, I'll follow. I would hear some more of thy memories, friend William; for my false John takes malicious shape in my mind, even as we speak.

XXXX

 **Scene 5: Without a tavern**

[Enter Sly, Heminges and Shakespeare, through the tavern door and at speed.]

 **Shakespeare:** A man may remember nothing, and yet remember how to fight, so it appears.

Stand, Sly! Arise! Sir William Sly! Behold! England has a new champion this day! A conquerer like King Henry of old!

 **Heminges:** There hath been eight thus far, Will. Which one is't?

 **Shakespeare:** Guess, Jack. Which brave King Harry would you choose? He who won France or the he who lost it?

 **Heminges:** Both the latter's grandsire and our fair Queen's won the kingdom itself from a Richard.

 **Shakespeare:** Aye, 'tis true. As like as not we'll suffer the same fate an you continue to point thy dagger at ev'ry other man's wife!

 **Heminges:** Why, Will, 'tis in my nature to smile at beauty in this world! God made me thus and, in his eternal wisdom, so too did he make woman. Thou wouldst not see me fight against my very maker, wouldst thee, Will?

 **Sly:** You fight against everyone else!

 **Shakespeare:** Ignore him William. He would steal not only my Jew's daughter, but his ducats, his bonds, his lawyer and her clerk!

 **Sly:** Her?

 **Shakespeare:** I forget! You have not yet read the play! Why, rehearsals will start after twelfth night. We must find you a copy if you are to be our book man.

 **Heminges:** 'Tis finished then, Will?

 **Shakespeare:** Aye, Jack, 'tis finished. The advent of our friend here provided the inspiration

to solve our little dilemma, and whom to cast for it. It is but a line, but every line must be said and every man must play his part.

 **Sly:** And has this part a name?

 **Shakespeare:** It has. [Bowing.] In honour of the holy mass, which, being Christmas, we had attended, and tempered by the Venetian setting, thy first role's name is now Leonardo. May he serve thee well.

 **Sly:** If not, it will be my own fault. Come now: where shall we go from here? Tavern or home?


	2. Act 2

**A/N:** The "old, fat man" Leonard vaguely recalls in Act 1 is his father, but will become, at Shakespeare's hands, one of the greatest antiheroes he ever wrote: Sir John Falstaff. Similarly, Leonards tangled memories of the "merry war" between himself and Sara as they got to know each other would go on to fuel Shakespeare's imagination in the writing of Much Ado About Nothing and in the characters of Benedick and Beatrice, two of his more sensible lovers. Although as far as sensible lovers go in Shakespeare, that's not really saying much.

For anyone not familiar not familiar with British informal versions of names, Jack is the informal version of John, and Hal, or Harry, the informal versions of Henry. Obviously, Lizzie is short for Elizabeth and Will for William.

John Heminges and Henry Condell, along with, indeed, William Shakespeare, his family, and all the other players mentioned herein, were actual people; however, massive liberties have been taken with the portrayal of their lives and no insult or offence is meant to their memories or surviving relatives.

* * *

The Shakespeare Years

 **Act 1: The Christmas Foundling**

 **Scene 1: Shoreditch**

[Guillaume, lying on the cobblestones, vomits and sits up. Enter William Shakespeare, flanked by John Heminges and Henry Condell]

 **Shakespeare:** What ho, man! Speak if thou dost live! Art thou drunken tinker or a slumbering lord?

 **Guillaume:** Neither, but a poor pilgrim returned from the Holy Land. I fear the journey has

not agreed with me.

 **Shakespeare:** A pilgrim, forsooth? Lying here? Knoweth thou what day it is?

 **Guillaume:** My journey hath been long and difficult. I fear I do not even know the year!

 **Shakespeare:** Why man! 'Tis Christmas! The new year draws nigh, but not so close as all that, for 'tis still the year of Our Lord fifteen ninety six.

[Guillaume reels.]

 **Shakespeare:** What ails thee, pilgrim?

 **Guillaume:** I merely balk at the time I have lost.

 **Shakespeare:** Why, what day dost thou last remember, friend?

 **Guillaume:** Of the day itself I cannot recall; but I know 'twas the first of December, not the twenty fifth.

 **Shakespeare:** Come John, come Henry: help me raise our new found friend to his feet.

He burns with fever and I fear he has long been ill with all. Speak, pilgrim, and tell: what name hast thou, and of what town a son.

 **Guillaume:** That is all I have in this world, my friend. Naught of great worth and little of ought else.

 **Shakespeare:** And I will bear it faithfully for thee,

'til thou canst take it up again thyself.

Thy name and whither, sir, may we bear thee?

 **Guillaume:** My name is William. No lodging have I but the bare stones from which thou didst raise me.

 **Shakespeare:** William thou art? Why, brother, so am I!

To Bishopsgate, and there I'll see thee lie.

[Exeunt]

XXXX

 **Scene 2: Shakespeare's lodgings**

[Guillame asleep in Shakespeare's bed. Shakespeare standing by the fire, out of his view. Guillaume awakes.]

 **Guillaume:** Where am I?

 **Shakespeare:** Thou art here, in Bishopsgate, without the City of London; in my lodgings in

Crosby Street at the sign of the Boar's Head, and in my bed. Art thou now answered?

 **Guillaume:** London. London, England. Christmas day, fifteen ninety six.

 **Shakespeare:** So it is.

 **Guillaume:** I am William, and so are you.

 **Shakespeare:** So we are. My comrades and I brought thee hither from whence we found thee, in Shoreditch.

 **Guillaume:** Shoreditch?

 **Shakespeare:** Where we were celebrating the birth of Our Lord and Saviour. We had begun such with holy mass at midnight in the Church of Saint Leonard, and from thence continued

our revels in the nearby taverns. It was upon leaving the last of these that we came across thy good self, reclining upon the piss-laden cobbles of two noisome alehouses.

 **Guillaume:** Saint Leonard?

 **Shakespeare:** The name is familiar?

 **Guillaume:** Yet for a sinner, not a saint.

 **Shakespeare:** All men are both, in equal measure. We choose which face the world sees, and rarely does it tell the full tale of our existence.

 **Guillaume:** And what is yours?

 **Shakespeare:** How say you, friend?

 **Guillaume:** Your tale. Your name I know, but it says naught of who you are. If a name told all, we two would be twins.

 **Shakespeare:** Yet, twin-like, I could ask the same of you.

[Guillame and Shakespeare stare at each other a moment.]

 **Shakespeare:** I am a humble wordsmith, sir: poet and playwright, and player too when it serves.

 **Guillaume:** I am a man of many trades and none. Put me to work and you'll not find me wanting. I am strong, or I was, and not unused to manual labour.

 **Shakespeare:** Can you read?

 **Guillaume:** In any language you care to write.

 **Shakespeare:** Indeed? Your education is something finer, then, than you could purchase in a pilgrim's weary life.

 **Guillaume:** My life has been my education. Come: put me to the test. What would you have me read?

[Shakespeare holds out a scroll, indicating the Latin on the seal.]

 **Guillaume:** Lord, direct us.

 **Shakespeare:** Know you what this is?

[Guillaume shakes his head.]

 **Shakespeare:** 'Tis the seal of the City of London. This scroll gives my players and I leave to perform therein for this coming twelvemonth.

 **Guillaume:** I have never seen it before in my life.

 **Shakespeare:** Good enough. Can you learn a role and play it as if it were truly your own self?

 **Guillaume:** Indeed, I do so every day!

 **Shakespeare:** In truth?

 **Guillaume:** My memory fails me. If a man cannot recall his own self, what else must he do but play the part he is presented with?

 **Shakespeare:** A poor memory makes an ill player.

 **Guillaume:** It is the past alone that eludes me.

 **Shakespeare:** Mayhap we can use you then. What say you?

 **Guillaume:** I will be guided by you, sir, of course. I have little else to repay you with. What few things I have are of paltry worth, and yet I trust they are safe in your care?

 **Shakespeare:** They are, and such strange things they are indeed. I pray you will forgive the intrusion, for I am a curious man, i'faith. I seek in others the inspiration for all my creations, sinner or saint.

 **Guillaume:** [looking and spotting sack] It is all there?

 **Shakespeare:** [rising and indicating the sack on the table] See for yourself, William. I am no thief.

[Guillaume approaches the table, his hands eagerly closing on the open mouth of the sack. Once he has satisfied himself that its contents were intact, he reaches for the purse and knife that lay nearby, fastening them to his belt with practised ease. Behind him, William watches and wonders.]

 **Shakespeare:** I cannot keep calling you 'William' or 'sir'. You have no trade, and you say you have no home. What then should I call you? Have you no family name by which you are known? What was your father's name?

 **Guillaume:** I have no other name. Not that I remember. And I do not believe I would use my father's if I knew it. The word itself merely conjures up in me a feeling of disgust, and the memory of an old, fat man who lacked the courage and wits to be a good thief, but was happy to let another do his thieving for him.

 **Shakespeare:** We cannot choose our parentage, William. Tell me of him and, if you wish it, I will write him in a character that will ridicule his soul before the masses.

 **Guillaume:** I would not have his memory taint your opinion of me. And who knows when I may need to bargain such a tale for another night's board!

 **Shakespeare:** Thou art a sly one, William of no place, no trade and no name. Sly thou art and sly I'll name thee. Why 'twas one of the first names I e'er gave a character of mine that graced the London stage.

 **Guillaume:** What would you call me, sir?

 **Shakespeare:** A Christian pilgrim you did come to me, and now I'll christen you anew. Arise, William Sly, and give me your friendship's hand. You'll pay me well in tales, or I'm a fool.

 **Guillaume:** Be my guide and friend in this strange city, and I will tell thee tales to fill thy mind. Thy purse will follow. Give me your good hand, and give me your name. To whom must Sly bow?

 **Shakespeare:** Both guide and friend I'll be to keep you here

and be my muse. My name is Will Shakespeare.

XXXX

 **Scene 3: A busy London street**

[Enter William Shakespeare and William Sly, walking through the streets of Bishopsgate. Enter a ragged and muddy-haired urchin, who cuts Sly's purse then darts away.]

 **Shakespeare:** My apologies, I should have warned you to keep one hand on your purse through these streets. I forget that, as a stranger here, you have no knowledge of the city and its surrounds. Fear not: I doubt the tailor would have accepted your strange coin anyway.

I have money enough to pay him for what we need now, and I'll warrant you have stories enough to earn me more later. Come: we shall see you properly attired and fit for company.

 **Sly:** Speaking of company: I note you keep none, bar mine, these last two days. Have you no family to share the season with?

 **Shakespeare:** I do indeed have family. They bide northwest of here, in Stratford-upon-Avon. Two daughters, under the care of my wife.

 **Sly:** And yet you are here?

 **Shakespeare:** A playwright needs an audience, and the best audiences are here, in London.

 **Sly:** But even for these few days?

 **Shakespeare:** I cannot. Judge me not: you know not of my sorrow.

 **Sly:** Then tell it me. Not that I may judge, but that I may understand.

 **Shakespeare:** Two children have I, but last year had I three. My boy, my son, the twin of my youngest daughter, was taken from me this very year, not five months since. So alike they were, I cannot yet look the one in the face without seeing the other.

 **Sly:** To lose a child is a pain I do not believe I have ever suffered. Although I believe I have known another who did. The loss of an only son, still young. Just a boy. And it broke his father's heart.

 **Shakespeare:** Sons often do.

 **Sly:** In more ways than one.

XXXX

 **Scene 4: Eastcheap, Sly's new lodgings**

 **Sly:** What year is it?

[A chorus of groans.]

 **Sly:** 'Tis now the first morn of fifteen ninety seven, or we have slept too long my friends.

 **Shakespeare:** I'll wager we have not overslept here. John mayhap, but Henry would not sleep past his morning vittles.

 **Henry Condell:** Not I, Will. An' there's a wench downstairs as knows my fancy for this hour o' the clock.

 **John Heminges:** I'll warrant she knows thy fancy for more than that!

 **Condell:** Hold thy peace, thou old letcher. Thou art ten years my senior, thou has a wife younger than mine, and still thy head turns at every comely bosom as floats by!

 **Heminges:** Hark, hark! The married man! Come now, Hal, we'll not tell the dulcet Lizzie where you supped whiles she deserted you for an ailing aunt, and you'll not tell my bonny lass where my gaze doth fall of late.

 **Condell:** Say what thou canst: my Lizzie's the finest cook this side of London.

 **Heminges:** I'll not doubt it. [To Shakespeare and Sly] Shall we send thee a plate of kidneys or a cup of sack gentlemen?

 **Shakespeare:** Neither an thou woudst not kill me by kindness. Go to. I'll follow thee presently.

 **Sly:** I fear I do not need my memory to tell me I am unpractised in your revels, sir.

 **Shakespeare:** Fear not, my friend, I am as ill-favoured as yourself this fine morning. Friend John is the exception, not we. The lad, Henry, took little enough ale to close his lids. 'Twas his elders that caroused until the midnight bell tolled the new year into life, not he. We have but our just desserts for our revels. Why our Jack feels it not is beyond my ken, and yet he never does. Belike he has made a pact with Marlow's demon! An I write a devil for thy

father, I'll make him a drunk and give him Jack's name!

 **Sly:** A drunken, lecherous John to tempt an innocent Henry?

 **Shakespeare:** Aye, and more than that! Between their two names and thy tales I'll weave a world of words that, in its history, bears a comedy, and in comedy lies a tragedy; for Hal will shake off his evil mentor, and will rise to be a greater hero than ever he was an egregious thief!

 **Sly:** I fear that John's bad angel may be more believable than Hal's good ascendant. 'Tis a high bar to set for a poor man.

 **Shakespeare:** Many a prince has been born a pauper. On my humble stage, all is possible.

 **Sly:** Will you break your fast with me or will you stay?

 **Shakespeare:** Lead on, I'll follow. I would hear some more of thy memories, friend William; for my false John takes malicious shape in my mind, even as we speak.

XXXX

 **Scene 5: Without a tavern**

[Enter Sly, Heminges and Shakespeare, through the tavern door and at speed.]

 **Shakespeare:** A man may remember nothing, and yet remember how to fight, so it appears.

Stand, Sly! Arise! Sir William Sly! Behold! England has a new champion this day! A conquerer like King Henry of old!

 **Heminges:** There hath been eight thus far, Will. Which one is't?

 **Shakespeare:** Guess, Jack. Which brave King Harry would you choose? He who won France or the he who lost it?

 **Heminges:** Both the latter's grandsire and our fair Queen's won the kingdom itself from a Richard.

 **Shakespeare:** Aye, 'tis true. As like as not we'll suffer the same fate an you continue to point thy dagger at ev'ry other man's wife!

 **Heminges:** Why, Will, 'tis in my nature to smile at beauty in this world! God made me thus and, in his eternal wisdom, so too did he make woman. Thou wouldst not see me fight against my very maker, wouldst thee, Will?

 **Sly:** You fight against everyone else!

 **Shakespeare:** Ignore him William. He would steal not only my Jew's daughter, but his ducats, his bonds, his lawyer and her clerk!

 **Sly:** Her?

 **Shakespeare:** I forget! You have not yet read the play! Why, rehearsals will start after twelfth night. We must find you a copy if you are to be our book man.

 **Heminges:** 'Tis finished then, Will?

 **Shakespeare:** Aye, Jack, 'tis finished. The advent of our friend here provided the inspiration

to solve our little dilemma, and whom to cast for it. It is but a line, but every line must be said and every man must play his part.

 **Sly:** And has this part a name?

 **Shakespeare:** It has. [Bowing.] In honour of the holy mass, which, being Christmas, we had attended, and tempered by the Venetian setting, thy first role's name is now Leonardo. May he serve thee well.

 **Sly:** If not, it will be my own fault. Come now: where shall we go from here? Tavern or home?


	3. Act 3

**Act 3: An Unexpected Guest**

 **Scene 1: The passing of the seasons**

[The scene changes from winter, to spring, to summer, to autumn, to winter again, showing the players before jovial common audiences, well-tailored, aristocratic London audiences, and disparate country audiences, then back to the commoners again. At each instance Sly protrays a character of greater import.]

XXXX

 **Scene 2: Shakespeare's Lodgings**

[Enter Sly and Shakespeare, to sit by a roaring fire in the latter's rooms while a winter storm rages outside.]

 **Shakespeare:** Tell me again, dear William, of the strange  
faces that haunt your dreams. You told me once  
the telling of the tale did make it real,  
yet now the stories from your mind doth steal.

 **Sly:** I tell thee true, 'tis no more than a dream.

 **Shakespeare:** Yet when you told me first, so real did seem  
these people to you that you wept for love  
of them. You told me then that they would fade:  
melt from your mind and turn into a shade.  
You know yourself that every paper there  
tells something true. I thought you would not dare  
to leave behind these figments of your mind  
who teach you how your own true self to find.

 **Sly:** My friend, I cannot answer for the thought  
that fades from sun-kissed vision into naught.  
I know I said as much: I still recall  
the speech we shared when thou to me didst call;  
when sat we here on balmy summer nights,  
or walked we home aft' all our tavern fights;  
when winter drew his captaincy all nigh,  
and cold winds though the shutters then didst sigh;  
when evening's price demanded tale be told,  
and clumsy mem'ries from my mind unfold.  
Then did I speak of all my heart could tell.  
Belike, methinks, I knew each tale too well.  
Now like the aged minstrel whose songs fade,  
I fear the hist'ries of a mind decayed.

 **Shakespeare:** You riddle prettily, good Lysander. Mayhap 'twas the wrong lover I had you play.

 **Sly:** Thou knowest well it was.

 **Shakespeare:** You think your lady will not await your return? That she has given you up for dead?

 **Sly:** My lady is a dream, far beyond my reach. A dream from which I feel myself awaking.

 **Shakespeare:** Then you no longer love her?

 **Sly:** Can a man love a dream?

 **Shakespeare:** Aye, an he feed it courtesies withall.

 **Sly:** Un-poet thy tongue, Will: speak plain.

 **Shakespeare:** A man may live within a dream, if only he has the imagination to keep it alive.

 **Sly:** Then how knows he the dream from the reality?

 **Shakespeare:** We choose our own reality, day by day. I mine, where I am a bachelor and free from grief and loss. Thee thine, where thou art what you will. I have no proof to give you, my friend, that you do not already bear about your neck. All I know is that once upon an April eve, you swore to me those tales were true; that they were the truth of your existence; that in their pages lived the memories of all your friends, family and foes; and that their very purpose was simply this: to remind you who you were when all else did begin to fade.

 **Sly:** So do you swear?

 **Shakespeare:** So do I swear. You have told me tales of heroes and villains, lovers and warriors, leaders and rogues. You have given me matter for a dozen plays, each with their own cast of characters. They build themselves castles in the airy space of my imagination, yet never do they grow so solid in my mind as when you speak of them. These are not figments to you: they are people. People whom you have loved, and people you have hated, but still people! Real! Tangible! Do not let them slip from your mind!

 **Sly:** I try, but ere I conjure up one face another disappears like smoke! I pray you: talk not on't. My brain burns within my skull.

 **Shakespeare:** You are ill?

 **Sly:** A mere minor malady. It will pass.

 **Shakespeare:** That is a bauble I have not seen you wear before. Yet it seems to me familiar...

 **Sly:** 'Twas a gift given by one of our patrons o'er the summer months.

 **Shakespeare:** Indeed. I do believe I have seen the Lord Tremayne's wife wear such a thing ere now.

 **Sly:** Belike 'twas from her I had it. What name had she?

 **Shakespeare:** The honourable Lady Alexa Tremayne. Doth it recall anything to your mind?

[William shakes his head, peering down at the ring.]

 **Shakespeare:** Were not the Tremaynes burgled? Some few weeks after we didst play our newest offering at their London lodgings."

 **Sly:** No, 'twas not they. There were a good many robberies of our patrons' grand houses while Apollo held sway over the night sky. In that lingering half-light that leaks around the edges of the world while he fights with his sister Dian for prominence, much can be accomplished without need for torch. But no, their home did not suffer the same fate.

 **Shakespeare:** A good many robberies? Why, indeed there were. Always did they seem so soon after we had left!

 **Sly:** Sooner after our friends the Admiral's Men had left them.

 **Shakespeare:** You believe our rivals were the cause of the thefts?

 **Sly:** 'Twas not our performances that were followed by such an epilogue. Do you expect company this night?

 **Shakespeare:** No more than the ghosts of my past returning now to haunt me.

[Enter Anne Hathaway/Shakespeare.]

 **Anne:** Well said, husband, of mine own love denied;  
beshrew thy heart and welcome now thy bride.

XXXX

 **Scene 3: Shakespeare's Lodgings**

[Present: Shakespeare, Anne, Sly]

 **Shakespeare:** Wife.

 **Anne:** What keeps thee here, my husband, from thy wife?  
Far from thy children, who should be thy life?  
What ails thee that thou dost forget us so?  
That thou hid'st here. For all that I didst know,  
ere I did set my foot upon thy stair,  
thy rotten corse might well have met me there.

 **Shakespeare:** My love, thou art forever in my thoughts  
and never doubt the love I have for thee;  
nor for my girls, the joy of my dear life.  
I pray thee, love, bear with my absence long,  
and take, in place, the fruits of all my work.  
Thou knowest well what grief dost hide me here,  
when heart and hearth no longer dare I 'proach.

 **Anne:** Thou coward man, to flee from what we three  
must face from here unto eternity.  
Thy daughters twain must comfort now themselves  
to grieve their brother and their father both.

 **Shakespeare:** I cannot look my daughter in the eye  
and know how I did let her brother die.  
Her twin! Whom I see ever in her face,  
whose 'cusing stare doth lame me in my grace  
and, haunting thus, doth fill my mind with woe  
until my person hence from there must go.  
Oh, loving wife! Do not enforce thy plea,  
and leave me to mine own indignity:  
a man beset by grief and dire regret,  
whose homely duties cannot now be met.  
Oh, do not ask me now to go live by  
the place wherein I caused my son to die.  
Thy humble servant ever will I be,  
Obedient in all but this to thee.

 **Anne:** Thou mak'st of grief excuses to be left  
To thine own self, and leave thy girls bereft.  
And yet thou can'st not see how thou dost lie,  
Dissemble and now use thy grief to try  
And piteously avoid the truth that we  
Thy kin are now of less import to thee  
Than is thy reputation. Selfish man!  
That turns his mind to writing while he can  
Both profit from his suffering in plays  
And in the idle comfort of his days.  
To eat and drink and sleep with whomsoe'er  
May catch his eye or hold his fancy there.

 **Shakespeare:** Good William Sly, I fear I must request  
Thy pardon, but my wife and I must rest.  
And as I have but one poor pallet I  
Must ask thee to in thine own lodgings lie.  
Thy counsel is both wise and well bethought,  
Yet mine own counsel must I keep for naught  
May come between a husband and a wife  
When fortune has ordained for them this strife.  
I would'st not have thee here, my dearest friend,  
Until our conference hath reached an end.

 **Sly:** Thy pardon for my gauche intrusion here.  
I take my leave; my resting place lies near.  
We'll carry on our confidence anon  
When present woes and duties then have gone.

XXXX

 **Scene 4: A room in the Queen's palace, with a stage set ready for the players.**

[Enter William Sly, looking on between the stage curtains.]

[Enter Henry.]

 **Henry:** What say you, William? Be they ready to see our play?

 **Sly:** Whether they are or not, it matters little. Our glorious queen has the final word and it is her eye, her ear, her favour, that we must woo tonight. How fares our poet?

 **Henry:** Ill sir, ill indeed. His heart weighs him heavy, William, that is for sure. Why, I've not seen him eat nor drink all night! Tell me thou hast an inkling what 'tis bears him so low, sir; and tell me thou dost know how to bear him up again!

 **Sly:** I might, sweet Hal, I might. Come: I see no sign from her gracious majesty yet. Show me where Will is and let Burbage the younger watch the frolicking for a while.

[Exit Henry and Sly. Enter Shakespeare, lost in his thoughts. Enter Sly, following.]

 **Sly:** Will! Will Shakespeare! Ho!

 **Shakespeare:** Is it time? Are we called for?

 **Sly:** Pray that we are not, for friend: where is thy costume? Get thee hence to our makeshift tiring house and let Bertie help thee into thy proper attire! Thou art our Prologue, and requisite for the first scene!

 **Shakespeare:** In truth, my mind is not my own. I shall endeavour to focus henceforth on my role in my play.

 **Sly:** Come, follow me. When we have reached the peace of our properties room, then tell me what ails you, although I fear I know the answer all too well.

[Exeunt.]

XXXX

 **Scene 5: The Properties Room at the Queen's Palace**

[Enter Sly and Shakespeare.]

 **Sly:** Speak freely now, my friend. Thou knowest well: I am thy true heart's confidante in all. What e'er thou sayest here, no man shall prise from my own lips ere thine shalt give me leave.

 **Shakespeare:** I know 'tis true, but truly, my true heart is so torn it knows not how to tell its pain. I grieve - Oh! how I grieve - for my dear boy, my Hamnet. I feel I am trapped for aye in this dark pit of hell, feeling nothing but the lack of him. I tear my heart to ribbons for the treacherous guilt it sends seeping through my bones. Guilt that I could not save him. Guilt that it was my fault he was ever in danger in the first place. Guilt that my wife and daughters have lived this past twelvemonth and more without sight of me, my presence no more than the money I send them when I can. I am a selfish man, William. A hateful man: all to be despised and scorned. I allowed myself to begin to live again. I wrote. I drank. I laughed. I loved. Now, unlooked for, comes my wife, in surety of her rightness and power, to bid me hence again. To call me back to the bosom of all my happiness and all my sorrow. I cannot do this, yet I must, if only to exorcise my demons, face my fears. Whether I leave or no, her visit has dragged me back into that foul pit of despair wherein I met you. A world where the face I wear on stage is closer to mine own than the one I show off stage. Where the skills of an actor are employed in all but sleep, what little there is of that.

 **Sly:** Then you must go. Put the ghosts of the past behind you, Will. You can never truly move forward until you do. I'll be a welcome guest at our Hal's table to celebrate the birth of our Saviour. If you leave tomorrow you can be there with time to get to know your daughters again before the great day. There are ten days yet! But stay you here tonight, for you are needed, and I will go out with you on the morrow to search for gifts for your family.

XXXX

 **Scene 6: Shakespeare's Departure by Coach**

[Enter coach and passengers. They load their boxes and persons on to the coach.]

[Enter Sly and Shakespeare. They approach the coach. The Coachman takes Shakespeare's box.]

 **Shakespeare:** I know not what I dread the greater. The accusations in the faces of my daughters, the memories they and their home summon within me, or the guilt each glance from my wife invokes.

 **Sly:** Your daughters will rejoice in seeing you. New memories, and good memories, will outweight the bad. As for your wife, there you must build your bridge anew. To be so absent, for so long, and for such a cause: it surely has changed you both. Be patient. You will learn to know each other once more.

 **Shakespeare:** How is't you are so certain of such, William? You who remembers no wife.

 **Sly:** I no longer know what I remember, nor what is merely dreams. I do but know this: if you believe there can be no hope for Anne and yourself, your marriage truly will be ended. You must hold on to that hope. Hope that, whatever has befallen you both in your time apart, you can win her back to you once again. Hope that she loves you still, as you love her. Do you love her?

 **Shakespeare:** I did. Once. With all my heart. More than e'er words might tell.

 **Sly:** Then tell her so. Tell her with whate'er words you have. Tell her with all thy heart, until there is nothing left of it for thyself. Protest thy cause at all points.

 **Shakespeare:** How now, if I do woo with so much of my heart that none is left to protest?

 **Sly:** Then woo with thy wits, protest with thy words and win her with thy heart.

 **Shakespeare:** I fear this is a role for which I have no heart, my friend.

 **Sly:** No heart, sir, or no stomach?

 **Shakespeare:** Neither, methinks, an I might widen the gap between us.

 **Sly:** Time does that on its own. We are but riders bourne upon its waves to steer our passage true where best we may. Fare thee well, my friend, and bravely. Adieu.

[Exeunt]


	4. Act 4

**Act 4: Shakespeare's Return**

 **Scene 1: A tavern, East Cheap.**

[Sly returns home, reliving the memory of the feasting at the Condell house.]

 **Landlord:** Arrived yesterday evening, Sly. There be mutton and chicken stew a-cooking for this eve, and you'd be a welcome hand in here when the wassailing starts. T'would earn you a few coppers more while the season lasts.

 **Sly:** A few coppers more would be of use indeed.

[Exit Landlord. Sly opens the letter.]

 **Sly, reading:** My dearest friend, as always my regards  
And greetings to thee in this season dear.  
I find myself with news of which to tell  
That hopefully will fill thy lonely ear.  
I have a house now bought and settled there  
My girls and Anne before the Christmas Day.  
'Tis now bedecked in holly and in all  
The brightest things my daughters can array.  
'Tis called New Place, for such was e'er its name  
Before we four did think to call it ours,  
And, by my troth, a new life waits us there  
Where we canst leave the sadness that devours  
And clouds the happiness of every day  
Spent in that house of ghosts, where once we dwelt,  
And where dear Hamnet met his mournful fate,  
Where only black despair was by me felt,  
Trimmed at each edge with tears and bitter guilt.

But now, my friend, give ear to brighter news!  
My daughters twain are both my heart's delight!  
My eldest girl is taller now than Anne  
And finds no thing doth cheer her more than write  
Sweet poetry to each and ev'ry bird  
Or beast or flow'r or tree or flutt'ring fly  
Whose radiant wings doth bear its form aloft  
To trespass in the clear and cloudless sky.  
My younger girl, my Judith, Hamnet's twin,  
Resembles now her mother more than I,  
And sings about the house with such a voice  
No tutelage or fortune great could buy.  
For me, to my great shame and endless joy,  
They have both naught but love and blesséd smiles,  
And have much miss'd me when, in London, I  
Have hid myself away from them awhiles.  
They wish me, both, to send to thee their thanks  
For all the aid thou gavest once to me  
In choosing each their yuletide gifts to bring  
From London, when I last did speak with thee.

In ending, let me say a word of Anne.  
She yet remains serenely by my side,  
But still I feel her distant, as the moon,  
And so must choose in Stratford now to bide  
Until that time her heart is won anew  
And she consents to send me back to you.

[Exit Sly, folding and pocketing the letter.]

XXXX

 **Scene 2: Temple Church, Twelfth Night.**

[Enter the poor of London, bearing alms and food for the starving beggars on the streets. Enter Sly, picking his way between them with careful consideration. He continues through a market, past the rich who spend money on fripparies and ignore the starving. He comes to a church and enters as a penitant, kneeling before a statue. When no eyes are on him he hides a bag of his treasures within the base of the statue. A church bell chimes four and he rises. Exit Sly. Exeunt.]

XXXX

 **Scene 3: The Curtain, Shoreditch**

[Enter Henry Condell and William Sly, carrying a table across the stage. Enter Shakespeare from the yard.]

 **Shakespeare:** How goes it, Master Sly?

 **Condell:** Will! Thou hast returned on an auspicious day! 'Tis now the Ides of March!

 **Shakespeare:** Auspicious day indeed, but not for good!  
'Twas great old Caesar's death day, was it not?

 **Sly:** And yet it served Marc Antony well.

 **Shakespeare:** Great Cleopatra would agree, methinks.  
Now there's a tale I'll tell an God be kind.

 **Condell:** Nay: two tales, Will. One o' Caesar and one his heirs. An' write me a murderer o' great Caesar as I may stab yon beslubbering, fat-kidneyed Burbage i' th' back as he so oft has I!

 **Shakespeare:** Hast thou been lorded o'er while I was gone?  
Sweet Hal, I like it not this streak in thee  
that revels in a needful gory part  
for naught but Puckishly to 'tend to kill  
the finest player that this town doth ken.

 **Condell:** The finest player he, but not the finest man! 'A pouts and flounces through all the tiring house and ne'er a scrap o' work does he. 'A deals out orders to hired man an' sharer alike an' he do save all th' worst tasks for I!

 **Shakespeare:** Sweet Hal! Brave Hal! How much thou must have borne.  
'Od's blood, I'll write thee thy revenge, I swear!  
Great Burbage as great Caesar then, and thou  
his murd'rer in the very first degree.

 **Condell:** An' little skill will't take to play the part! Anon! I'll go announce thy coming to the company! 'Twill be a revelation much rejoiced in, I'll warrant!

[Exit Condell.]

 **Sly:** What's wrong? Tell me plain, Will; and do not say 'tis naught.

 **Shakespeare:** Yet naught it is, I dare say, for all that.  
'Tis naught, at least, that should now trouble me.

 **Sly:** Come: truth will out! And if not thee then who?  
Who is't that now should bid their rest adieu?

 **Shakespeare:** Perhaps thou knowest more of this than I.  
Hast thou not heard the rumours this last month?

 **Sly:** Thou knowest well how keen's my gossip's ear,  
But rumour in this city runs like rats:  
there never is just one for all to hear.  
Pray thou be more specific in thy chats.

 **Shakespeare:** Whilst I did bide in Stratford with my wife  
and daughters, there didst come a London tale  
of terror bare among the upper class.  
A plethora of daring, wondrous thefts,  
that kept the high and mighty all a-feared  
for safety o' their fine and precious goods.  
The wonder o' it is the ease withall  
the miscreant doth move from place to place  
and, though he move through every gilded hall,  
no man hath seen a shadow of his face.  
The Ghost of London town they call this thief,  
who carries out these crimes beyond belief.

 **Sly:** A ghost they say in East Cheap also, Will.  
And Bishopsgate and all the land around.  
Yet never has this spirit struck them there,  
where none but those in greater need are found.

 **Shakespeare:** So to did I thence hear before I came  
to visit thee in this our place of work.  
Yet also there I found in some a fear:  
that having wrung the rich the Ghost would turn  
to prey upon the poorer folk therein.

 **Sly:** He will not.

 **Shakespeare:** Say you so? In truth, 'twill ease their hearts more than it does mine, William.

 **Sly:** What fearest thou?

 **Shakespeare:** Of only that which cannot here be spake.

 **Sly:** Then come. Our play is o'er and all is still.  
'Tis now the very witching hour of night,  
when might a man well fear to speak of ghosts,  
e'en in the very heart of all his friends.  
I'll walk with thee to Bishopsgate and there,  
in safety of thy walls, I'll speak with thee.

[Exeunt.]

XXXX

 **Scene 4: Shakespeare's lodgings**

[Enter William Shakespeare and William Sly.]

 **Sly:** Melomel or sack, Will? Or need you something stronger? One spirit to strengthen thy speech of another?

 **Shakespeare:** Or _to_ another? You do not deny it then.

 **Sly:** To what end? If I did would you believe me?

 **Shakespeare:** In truth? I would not. Nor can I blame you, for the pay of a player is a paltry one.

 **Sly:** There is that.

 **Shakespeare:** Then monetary gain it not thine only cause? Indeed, I feared as much.

 **Sly:** Feared? Or thought? What fearest thou? I am no threat to thee.

 **Shakespeare:** No threat? William thou art my player, my partner and my friend! If thou art caught in this...

 **Sly:** I'll not be caught.

 **Shakespeare:** How can'st thou be so sure?

 **Sly:** There is no lock in this city I cannot unpick, nor none yet made the whole world o'er! I read their secrets as easily as I do thy words, and play upon their fastness as smoothly as I do the eager groundlings.

 **Shakespeare:** You grow too bold, dear William. This say I:  
To bold by far and it doth worry me.  
For thou art changèd much these past three months,  
and I like not the change I find in thee.

 **Sly:** Enough! Speak plain! We are but we two here.  
Or hast thou stationed constables herein?

 **Shakespeare:** I'll parle plain if thou wilt Sly. Thou art a thief! I didst take thee in, teach thee a trade, give thee shelter, food and fellowship! I named thee! I trusted thee!

 **Sly:** I have not betrayed that trust.

 **Shakespeare:** Yet!

 **Sly:** Should e'er I do such, pluck off my name, my share, and all that you have given me, and convey it all upon the next you hire to take my place. Let he be Sly and old William Sly forgot. Erase me from your life, as ink from parchment, and let my ghost be covered up anew: another man as palimpsest to me.

 **Shakespeare:** A ghost indeed! Well said, for Ghost thou art!  
And still thou claim'st the papers thou dost hold  
are naught but dreams? Go to! They are no more,  
nor no less neither, than the blessèd truth!  
And such a truth thou can'st not now deny!

 **Sly:** I am myself. I know not how to be else. I am who I am, and what I am. Hold me to no more than that.

 **Shakespeare:** A deity may claim as much! Ay me!  
But by thy papers there thou hast been known  
a visage of a deity of old!

 **Sly:** And by those papers you would have me fly  
throughout the vast immensity of time,  
from far flung future to a time forgot!

 **Shakespeare:** And yet it seems so now to my own mind.  
My secret mind I share with none but thee.

 **Sly:** Then 'tis not your intent to turn me in?

 **Shakespeare:** You have to ask?  
To what end, William? Wherein would I gain?  
My players and myself would lose our writ,  
our reputation and our livelihood!  
Myself would, like as not, be carted off,  
or shunned through all the city as a fool!  
A madman, driven wild by gross excess  
of vain imagination or, indeed,  
by sad and doleful grief for my dear boy.

 **Sly:** So tell me, Shakespeare: what would thou of me?  
Wouldst have me gone? Wouldst share my stolen gold?

 **Shakespeare:** Neither! Neither! I wouldst have naught to do with aught that this endeavour has provided thee! Nor wouldst I have thee gone - I love thee so - for going such might turn a watchman's eye upon thy shadow! Nay, William, I would have naught from thee but this: thy word that none should suffer by thy hand, at least no more than they can bear."

 **Sly:** I cannot claim the knowledge of a person's inner heart, such that I might judge what each may bear, or how each might break. Therefore this I'll promise thee in its stead: that I will never knowingly take more than I think fit, nor visit harm upon the undeserving.

 **Shakespeare:** What man is fit to say what harm another may deserve? Say only this, then: that thou wilt not knowingly put an innocent in danger by thy thefts.

 **Sly:** So too, I swear.


	5. Act 5

**Act 5: Sly's Departure**

 **Scene 1: The street outside Sly's lodgings.**

[Enter Sly, walking through the shadows to his lodgings. He pauses and looks up.]

 **Sly:** The moon is high this autumn eve, and bright.  
The hour is late and all lie quiet here,  
Slumb'ring in the depth of Morpheus' arms.  
No matter that: there is no need for I  
To rise at dawn tomorrow with the rest.  
I have no plays nor calls upon my time  
Until the setting of the watchful sun  
Doth cast a cloak of darkness o'er my form.  
And yet my absence here doth worry me  
For through the summer months the Ghost was gone,  
Yet now the summer fades, the Ghost returns  
Just as the players too return again.  
'Twould not be hard to see a pattern there  
The players go, the Ghost doth disappear.  
The players come, the Ghost is here once more.  
Conclude! Conclude! A player is the Ghost!  
Mayhap, a man might be persuaded though,  
That 'tis the gentry not the lowly man  
That thence is followed by this unknown thief,  
For surely 'tis the wealthy who attract  
The keen attention of their hated foe  
Just as the hunter follows far the doe.

The clouds draw nigh: tomorrow will bring rain  
I must to bed, before light comes again.

XXXX

 **Scene 2: The Curtain, after a performance.**

[Enter John Heminges, William Shakespeare and William Sly. They seat themselves in a rough circle in a corner of a the lower gallery, Sly perched on the balustrade, Heminges stradling the lower bench and Shakespeare seated on the middle bench, a jar of ale between them and seven cups, three of which they fill and take.]

 **Heminges:** What ails thee, Will? I would not drink alone.

[Shakespeare indicates Sly, who takes a sip.]

 **Heminges:** Aye, an' _he_ drinks like the very devil! Enough to madden a man but that he drinks no more than a sip for each mouthful!

 **Shakespeare:** Perhaps, next time we play Marlow's Faustus, we should cast you as the doomed Doctor and he as your demon.

 **Heminges:** Thou knowest well what demons do haunt me.  
But say: what demon keeps thee from thy drink?"

 **Shakespeare:** I would were Burbage and his brother here. Our other sharers and young Henry too.

 **Heminges:** Then 'tis our money matters mar your mind. We are yet above water, Will. Do not trouble thyself needlessly.

 **Shakespeare:** We will not remain as such for long should Burbage carry on his nit-picking over the Theatre. He is costing us patrons, not least in the private theatres within the walls! An he keeps on his nigh-nosed nonsense, we'll have no warm business this winter and little enough else to fill our purses withall!

 **Heminges:** 'A will surely come to his senses soon enough.

 **Shakespeare:** What senses? Bertie got all the sense there ever was in the Burbage blood. His brother got all the ego!

 **Heminges:** What would you then? Wouldst talk to him? Wouldst have _me_ talk to him?

 **Shakespeare:** Would that Phillips and Kempe were here; but both, it seems, have greater calls upon their time.

 **Sly:** Why?

 **Heminges:** Will?

 **Shakespeare:** I have an idea.  
'Tis one that begs the hearing of us all,  
for it will take us all to make it real.  
It is a risk, and humbly I do own  
that this may bring us all to beggary.  
We can no longer merely keep afloat.  
'Tis sink or swim. Methinks I have a boat.

 **Heminges:** What manner of idea, Will?

 **Sly:** And what manner of risk?

 **Shakespeare:** What might we do if all of this were ours?

 **Heminges:** Earn more than just out daily crust for starters. But we have not the coin to buy the Curtain, Will! Even were it plain that old buzzard wished to sell it!

 **Shakespeare:** No, no, we could not _buy_ a theatre.

 **Sly:** But you _could_ build one.

 **Shakespeare:** Indeed.

 **Heminges:** To build our own theatre? Even with the brothers Burbage, with Phillips, and with Kempe, we could not hope to do it! Where would we build? And with what?

 **Shakespeare:** I have a few spots of ground in mind. One to the west, another to the south. South is cheaper: 'tis o'er the river in Southwark. 'Tis also by the Rose, however, and by this we may suffer. The land in the west, therefore, is where my preference lies.

 **Sly:** Choose the south.

 **Shakespeare:** Why?"

 **Sly:** 'Tis cheaper, and competition is only competition if 'tis as good as you are. They are not.

 **Shakespeare:** Are those your only reasons, William Sly?

 **Sly:** They are my best ones.

 **Heminges:** Tell me of the space in Southwark.

 **Shakespeare:** 'Tis cheaper than the other. 'Tis still beyond our means alone, though. We would lease the ground and build our stage upon it ourselves. 'Twould need money from all sharers, more, perhaps from Richard and Cuthbert. Their name would be advantageous in securing the lease also. Mayhap we will require more sharers, also. Sweet Hal, perhaps, may care to increase his share in this respect, being yet so junior a partner in our enterprise.

 **Heminges:** Mayhap, but that is the lease alone. There it still the cost of building to cover, and the materials to find.

 **Shakespeare:** The materials we have. At least, Dickie Burbage does.

 **Sly:** The Theatre. You want to move the whole building.

 **Shakespeare:** James Burbage built it. His eldest son now owns it. Just not the land it lies on. At present.

 **Sly:** You want to steal a theatre. You want to steal _The_ Theatre!

 **Shakespeare:** Not steal, just move. The building itself, by rights, belongs to Burbage. If it did not, he would not yet be arguing over it. No, all I propose is this: the company of the Lord Chamberlain's Men leases the land; the brothers Burbage, with the aid of the men and boys of said company, take down their Theatre, piece by piece and timber by timber, and move it to the new site. We shall require artificers to aid in the reconstruction of the building, but, mayhap, should the company lend what skills they have and what labour they can, and should the sharers extend their purview to a share in the cost of the building itself, and thus the profits also of course, we could, by heaven, achieve it. We would have to cut our cloth to suit our means, but when has that worried us before?

 **Heminges:** We would be forced to trim our sails somewhat. Artificers are expensive. Even after building is done, what tasks we can take on alone in our plays, we must.

 **Shakespeare:** You are with me then?

 **Heminges:** To th' ends o' th' earth, Will.

 **Shakespeare:** Then we are men of one accord. Thou wilt stand with me when I put the case to Burbage and the others?

 **Heminges:** Aye.

 **Sly:** I must say, my friend. In all my forgotten life, I do not believe I have ever stolen an entire theatre before!

 **Shakespeare:** Burbage senior built it. He bought and paid for each and every timber and hair in that great edifice, and the time and skill to raise it into being - the first of its kind in London - and all that falls to Burbage junior. Dickie _owns_ the thing! He cannot steal that which he already owns!

 **Sly:** Oh no: let us not spoil it, dearest Will.

XXXX

 **Scene 3: The Globe, Southwark.**

[Enter the whole company of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, minus William Kempe, they form a group around William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage.]

 **Sly:** Must I, Will? 'Od's blood, I am heartily sick o' dying!

 **Cowley:** Then thou might find thyself in but a small role in this piece, Master Sly. Our poet knows how to turn a tragedy!

 **Shakespeare:** Thou hast played the part before and served it well. We already have Burbage as our titular hero and Heminges as his deadly foe, and neither of them survive! What wouldst thou? Play the maiden? She falls also! The aged father? Then who will play my younger men?"

 **Heminges:** Let him play the rival. He, at least, dies not until the last. Do you take on Mercutio's role, Master Cowley. Thou art our clown and he is Romeo's.

 **Cowley:** I? I cannot play such a grand part! I thumb my nose at Montagues and insult their womenfolk is all!

 **Heminges:** Aye, thou didst, before Master Kempe announced his departure. Now, surely, his roles are thine?

 **Cowley:** Mine? All mine?

 **Heminges:** Thou canst keep thy nose-thumbing Capulet, Cowley, an thou makest a smart change o' 'tire.

 **Shakespeare:** Aye, 'tis doable. Only just, but 'tis doable, and we must needs take on as many parts as possible. What say you Master Cowley?

 **Richard Burbage:** Then it shall be so. Master Cowley shall take on Mercutio as well as his usual, favourite role. Master Faulconbridge shall impart prologue, priest and 'pothecary, as usual. Myself shall play the dashing hero, and Master Heminges my valiant adversary, fiery Tybalt. Master Pope presents the Nurse and my aged father. Master Condell takes on the fair Prince and thy scurrilous companion, Cowley. Master Phillips and Master Sinclair thine opponents in that first scene and entertainers at the ill-fated revels, wherein I meet young Master Gilbourne as my beauteous lady. Master Shakespeare shall present Benvolio and old Capulet's cousin. Master Sly shall present Paris. Have we boys for the Ladies Capulet and Montague?

 **Shakespeare:** We have but one for both. They do not appear together, as I recall. I shall lay out the double roles better in my mind, though, should we 'hearse the piece in full. Come: let us spend the rest of this day conning our diverse parts and meet here on the morrow to play it through. I fear our lack of men may play us false in this mournful tragedy.

 **Cuthbert Burbage:** We managed well enough in Julius Caesar. The only changes we needs must make affect Kempe's characters and those of the actors who take them on. I will draw up a fresh plot of who is on stage in each scene.

 **Condell:** I have not yet tired of Julius Caesar.

 **Shakespeare:** 'Twas a right royal way to Christen our new home and introduce it to the city, Hal. But 'twill not do for this month. March, mayhap, may see a reprise of that role, but February is home to Saint Valentine's day, and a play of lovers it more apt.

 **Sly:** Even if 'tis a play where the lovers end by killing themselves!

 **Shakespeare:** Had I leave to do so, I would have chosen our newest comedy, William, you know that. Our greatest patron has requested this, and neither you nor I am in a position to deny her. We shall simply have to postpone your reprisal of Benedick until spring.

If there are no other queries?

 **Heminges:** Where shall we spend our purse tonight Will?

 **Shakespeare:** About the play!

 **Company:** Nay.

 **Shakespeare:** Good.

XXXX

 **Scene 4: The Globe, during the last scene of Romeo and Juliet.**

[Enter audience and Gilbourne, as Juliet, recumbant. Enter Sly, as Paris, hidden between a pillar and the stage curtain to the tiring house. Enter Richard Burbage, as Romeo.]

 **Richard Burbage:** Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,  
gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,  
thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,  
and, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!

 **Cuthbert Burbage:** 'Tis thy cue, William. William!

 **Sly:** This is that banish'd haughty Montague,  
that murder'd my love's cousin, with which grief,  
it is supposed the fair creature died;  
and here is come to do some villainous shame  
to the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.

[Sly and Burbage fight. Sly, as Paris, dies. Enter other players. The play continues. Sly arises and bows with the rest. Exeunt to tiring house. Sly proceeds to the tiring house door to the yard. Enter Rip Hunter.]

 **Hunter:** Who are you?

 **Sly:** Who are you?

[Exit Sly, by no visible means.]

 **Finis**


End file.
